Rules of Engagement
by WideEyedDreamer01
Summary: Rule# 1: Don't put your life in danger. Rule# 2: When undertaking covert observation, don't lose sight of your goal. Rule# 3: Never, ever, under any circumstances, get attached. Especially not to a gorgeous, extremely dangerous underworld leader with a mysterious and heartbreaking past, because that's a surefire way of screwing up not only your research, but your heart, too.
1. Chapter 1

**I know! I shouldn't be allowed to publish any more stories when Rosemarie Returns is still going, I'm having second thoughts about a My Saving Grace sequel...oh, and then there's Matched...AND I promised a sequel to No Ordinary Fairytale...Ahh! But the plot bunny bit, and I'm really intruiged about this plot, because I'm taking psychology courses and...the rest is history. Enjoy!**

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**Summary**

Rule# 1: Don't put your life in danger. Rule# 2: When undertaking covert observation, don't lose sight of your goal. Rule# 3: Never, ever, under any circumstances get attached. _Especially_ not to a gorgeous, extremely dangerous underworld leader with a mysterious and heartbreaking past, because that's a surefire way of screwing up not only your research, but your heart, too.

Rose Hathaway's a rising name in psychology with a fascination for the complex gang underworld. Dimitri Belikov's a notorious underworld lord with a mysterious past. When their paths collide, the consequences are bound to be catastrophic. Can Rose write the research paper of the century without compromising her identity, her heart and the rules of engagement?

_8__th__ January, 2011_

_Dear Diary,_

_Tomorrow is the day we're going in. More than ever, I'm so glad that I managed to convince Dr. Petrov to let Lissa participate, too. I was surprised she wanted to, but she knows that if my paper is successful, having her name in it will do both our careers well. I never thought of her as the kind of psychologist who'd want to be out in the field, but she's a surprising person. I think she's looking forwards to investigating the youth side of the group, with her background in developmental psychology. Still, it's good she'll be around: It'll be intimidating enough- I'm glad there will be at least one familiar face, even if we have to pretend we don't know each other._

_All of a sudden, I'm really nervous. I mean, I've done stuff like this before, but well, this is a bit more personal. I'm afraid of what I might find- there are some rocks that really don't need turning over, you know? The worms on the other side are bound to be ugly, but I get the feeling that this time, it'll be worse. Call it a premonition, maybe. Psychologists need to trust their gut. My three years in the LAPD taught me that much._

_Originally, when Dr. Tanner suggested I keep a diary of my time while I'm under, I snorted at him. Called him a few names he probably didn't appreciate. 'Soul-searching, holistic namby-pamby' was probably the worst one. At least he didn't throw me out of his office, that time. If you ask me, I think he's glad to have me out of the university for a while; apparently I scare some of the interns. I mean, I get it. I probably wouldn't want to cross me at seven am. In the morning when the coffee maker's broken, either. There's also the thing about being the youngest doctorate-qualified forensic psychologist in the university's history that seems to put them on edge._

_I tried to call my mom before I go, but she isn't answering. She's probably off somewhere in Africa again, trying to save a country, or in South America, trying to single-handedly save the rainforest. She was always disappointed that I didn't follow her path. What with moving around so much as a kid, and being forced into all those extra-curricular activities, I'm sure she thought it was a surefire thing that I'd become some kind of humanitarian. I can still see her face the day I told her I wasn't applying for the diplomatic service. I know, right? Instead, I got a full ride for psychology at Stanford, then a professorship, but noo. Still not good enough for mother dearest, not that I'm bitter, or anything. _

_She never really understood my interest in the human side of life, the one that didn't involve dealing with the mess people make, but why and how they make it. But that's an argument for another day. I could psycho-analyze myself to death with just the last two hundred words of this stupid diary entry. It's going to be a hoot re-reading this in a year's time. Mikhail'll finally realize that instead of teaching abnormal psychology, I should be in a zoo, with 'Exibit A' for ADHD plastered to my forehead. If I, like, die during this experiment, or something, and end up disemboweled in the streets like the rest of the idiots who were stupid enough to backstab Dimitri Belikov, here's a shout-out to Mikhail; you're an asshole for making me write all of this down. My hand is seriously starting to cramp. Damn you._

_But seriously, if something does go wrong, and I don't come back… Promise, whoever you are, that you won't tell anyone what happened. I don't want to be known as the psychologist who got killed by her own experiment. There I go again, my maternally-inherited fear of failure._

_I have to go. Lissa's banging at my door, and I think I smell Chinese takeout, yum. We're going to eat the last semi-decent food we'll have in six months, and watch a few movies, and just be us for a night. I'm going to enjoy it- come tomorrow, I'll have to slip on another persona, become somebody else, lie about everything. So, well…I guess I'll go. I used to keep a diary when I was little, lasted about a week, usually. I never knew how to finish it. Anyway. So, this is me, Rosemarie Hathaway, signing in for the last time before going under._

_See you on the other side._

_-Rose._

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**So, good start? Interested? Let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Long time, no update, I know, but better late than never, right? For those of you waiting on a Rosemarie Reurns chapter, I've hit a bit of a wall, so I decided to write this in the hopes that I might get some inspiration. Thanks for sticking with me, guys. And now, onto the next chapter!**

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_15__th__ January, 2011_

_Dear Diary,_

_When I was thirteen, my biology class went on a field trip. If the idea of getting out of school for the day wasn't exciting enough in itself, our teachers told us we were going to the ICE CREAM FACTORY. Yeah, that's right. Every kid's biggest dream was coming true, and what's more, the school was paying for us to go there. I was pretty pumped. It was all I talked about. I went to sleep at night whilst visions of ice-cream mountains and endless experimental flavor tasting danced in my head. _

_We arrived at the huge, shiny, exciting factory that seemed like the gates of Oz to my younger, already-sugar addled self (I ate a tub of Ben and Jerry's on the bus, just to get into the groove) and I was instantly disappointed to see that our tour guide was not Willy Wonka but a middle-aged woman who wasn't even wearing a white coat, and no there would be no free tasting, and yes we had to stick together. Talk about a buzz kill, right? And then to top it all off, they didn't even talk to us about how ice-cream was made, we ended up in the freaking low-fat frozen yogurt section listening to the not-Wonka drone on about lactose and lactase. _

_It remains, to this day, one of the greatest disappointments of my life. Have you ever had that feeling? You know, where you're just so soul-suckingly drained, so hopelessly disappointed you can hardly breathe? Where you realize you've been completely and utterly disillusioned and you don't even get to walk down slowly off of your mountain of high expectations, doing damage control and rationalizing-instead, some jerk pushes you off unexpectedly and you have to deal with it all at once? Yeah. That. It totally, completely sucks. And you might try to argue with me that a visit to an ice-cream factory and psychological field work are two completely different ball parks, but let me assure you that the only touchdowns in those ball games are when you fall flat on your face in disappointment. _

"Apt analogy," Lissa said cheerfully from behind me, clearly reading over my shoulder. "Very creative. The ability to make creative analogies is an indicator of healthy neuropathology and interaction between the left and right sides of the brain." I whirled.

"You're reading my diary?" I asked, trying to sound appropriately offended. She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, yet another stunningly intuitive observation from Dr. Rosemarie Hathaway, pride and joy of modern-day psychology," she intoned, and dodged the kick I aimed. I glared at her.

"I hate everything about you," I huffed. She shrugged.

"Sue me. This place is dead. Night shift sucks. I already did all of my work, and all of yours, and ate the leftover cheesecake, so you are now officially the most interesting thing in this goddamn diner." She grabbed a teatowel and retreated a few steps. "Bet I can hit you from here with it," she challenged me and I snorted, taking a sip of my lukewarm latte.

"Oh please, Liss, you have the hand/eye co-ordination of an epileptic monkey." She made a face at me.

"Yeah, and you have the epileptic monkey's handwriting, by the looks of it," she said, reading over my shoulder again. I rolled my eyes.

"Here's an idea, girl genius. Take off your shirt, go stand on the sidewalk and bring us some business." Lissa looked actually thoughtful for a moment, before walking back into the kitchen muttering something about the wrong kind of business. I turned back towards the seating area of the diner with a groan, surveying my surroundings. The diner was appropriately crappy for the downtown side of California. Flickering yellow and pink lights lit up the walls and it was decorated with tacky faux-leather seating booths. Somehow it had been left out of the redecorating craze of the early 90's and still belonged somewhere back in the sixties, but not in the cute, chic way- in the downright depressing way, to be frank. With a sigh I turned back to my diary.

_I know we've only been here for a week, but I figured something more exciting would have happened by now. I mean, we're smack bang in the middle of gang central! The most exciting thing I've seen is a stripper slap some guy who tried to haggle with her. Seriously._

I heard an ominous noise from the kitchen that sounded like a can being opened, then a weird hissing noise. I shook my head and grimaced. At this rate, Lissa would go through a can of whipped cream every shift. I shook my head and continued writing.

_We had a few shady customers come in two days ago, but nothing came of it. And come on, they ordered apple pie. Gangsters eating apple pie? Somehow, I think not. Our helper in the police department said he would let us know if anything was supposed to go down, but he couldn't do anything, not really. The only thing I've learned is that gangs are notoriously suspicious of outsiders, and only a huge show of trust or skill will be enough to buy your way in, and in all honesty, a couple of old movies could have told me that much._

Absent-mindedly, I ran my fingers through my hair, then winced. As part of our 'disguise', we'd had to change our looks, quite drastically. Lissa had quite gleefully cut her shoulder-length curls to a messy, straightened bob 'do, and had then proceeded, in typical Lissa fashion, to outdo herself and dip-dye the spiky ends a vibrant pink. She had blue contacts and a fake tattoo on her bicep, not to mention the truly horrifying array of earrings and jewelry that only she could still manage to look drop-dead stunning in. She looked like anything but the squeaky-clean neuro-psychologist I had known and loved for nearly five years.

And on my part, the transformation was almost as dramatic. My chocolate brown locks, which I kept long, halfway down my back, had been left curly (seriously, it was too much of a pain to straighten) and dyed black (originally we'd decided red, but I freaked out when I saw the walking incarnation of my mom in the mirror. My olive skin and dark brown eyes we had used to our advantage, and, given Lissa's superb makeup skills, I looked convincingly Hispanic, which I could pull off given I spoke the language fluently. I'd ditched my usual geek-chic wardrobe in favor of a style Lissa had cheerfully called the 'Skanky Gypsy'.

_It's fun, but really, we aren't learning anything, apart from how funny it is to watch the other waitresses to some serious ballbusting when people don't leave a tip. Okay, sometimes it's interesting to observe the kind of people who come into this diner, but they aren't our target, so_-

Crack.

Snap.

"Ow!" I howled, doubling over the cash register clutching the underside of my thigh. My best friend cackled unrepentantly, wielding a wet teatowel, and took a bow.

"You are so immature," I grumbled, still rubbing my stinging butt. She smirked triumphantly.

"Perhaps, but empirical testing has determined I no longer have the hand/eye co-ordination of a disabled primate. Unfortunately, its calligraphy is still better than yours." I rolled my eyes.

"I think that pink hair dye is seeping into your brain, Liss," I muttered. She scoffed.

"Scientifically impossible. There are no known cases of chemicals seeping into the brain via the scalp, much less those associated with hairdye product."

"I want a sarcasm sign," I muttered, fiddling with my pen.

"I want an 'I'm sarcasming your sarcasm sign'," Lissa retorted, reading the page I'd written.

"_Sarcasming_ isn't a verb," I said petulantly.

"Neither is _ballbusting_," Lissa mused. "Gimmie that pen." She snatched it.

"I liked you better when you were polite," I whined. "Hey! You have your own field notes, you can't just-"

_Amended. Dr. Hathaway has learned that Dr. Dragomir's hand/eye coordination should not be allegorical to that of a seizure-suffering ape, and Dr. Dragomir recommends Dr. Hathaway to enroll in handwriting classes upon return to the university. _

_"_Lissa-!"

"Ow, Rose, that was my hair!"

_Amended. Dr. Dragomir's hairdye is seriously effecting her cognitive function. Side effects include invention of new words, violence towards Dr. Hathaway and serious annoyance, possibly culminating with Dr. Dragomir having her head shoved down a toilet. Perhaps fieldwork into this area could prove more beneficial. _

"You're a bully," Lissa sniffed. I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah? I know a great psychiatrist." She snorted.

"Uh-huh. Do you want another coffee?" I shrugged.

"Sure. We have another hour until our shift is over." As Lissa walked back towards the kitchen, there was a screeching sound from the road, and then a wail as tyres skidded around a corner. They were close. Too close.

"Get down!" I yelled to Lissa, diving into the kitchen and taking her with me. As we hit the floor the sound of glass shattering filled my ears, and I waited for the inevitable gunfire that would follow, but none came. After a few minutes I dared to glance up and saw the bonnet of an old car had broken the glass front of the diner. Stupidly, I stood up, my instincts taking over.

"Hey, are you okay?" I yelled to the figure in black, who stumbled out of the car and onto the deserted street. He didn't reply, but instead turned on his heel and ran. I groaned, shaking Lissa.

"Come on, let's get him!" I hissed. Lissa nodded.

"Think I should call the police?" I half-laughed as we ran out the kitchen and into the back-ally behind the diner. With any luck, we could cut him off.

"This is downtown California. The cops are too busy with homicide and doughnuts to worry about a hit-and-run," I called. We skidded out into the alley fast, but the sight of what was happening took my breath away like I'd been punched in the gut. The man who'd got out of his car was standing in the flickering streetlight, blood trickling from his face and staining his dark suit. His clothes were tasteful and expensive, but the most interesting thing he was wearing was an expression of absolute, pure terror.

"_La Bratva_ sends its regards," said a cold, slightly accented voice from the shadows, before there was a blast, a gunshot, and the man fell to the ground, a dark red hole between his eyes. Numb with shock and trembling, I froze as the speaker stepped from the shadows. Dressed entirely in black, he nearly blended in with his surroundings. The first thing I noticed were his eyes- deep, rich chocolate brown. I've heard it said some people believe brown eyes can't be threatening, and they're very, very wrong. His were nearly black and razor sharp, set in a undeniably handsome face. He was incredibly tall, I realized as he stepped closer, pocketing a black revolver, and had an aura of power and understated confidence that was mesmerizing. In that instant, I realized two things.

Number One: _This was Dimitri Belikov._

Number Two: _We were very, very screwed. _

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**I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I'd appreciate some feedback! I'll update either this or, with any luck, Rosemarie Returns, soon :)**


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